This invention pertains to a self-locking threaded bearing and to an assembly utilizing such bearing as well as a method of making the assembly and, more particularly, to a window operator structure wherein an input shaft is rotatably mounted within the bearing and the self-locking feature of the bearing assembly prevents removal of the input shaft and the bearing.
One example of the utility of the self-locking threaded bearing is in use in a window operator wherein rotation of an input shaft, having a worm gear which engages a worm wheel on an operator arm, causes movement of a window. In such a structure, the input shaft is associated with a bearing and the bearing is then threaded into a bore in the housing. A structure of this general type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,276, owned by the assignee of this application. In the prior structure, after the bearing was threaded into position, it was held in place by use of an additional structural element, such as a pin wedged in the interengaging threads of the bearing and the housing, which required an additional step in the assembly operation and, therefore, increased the cost of the product. The present invention relies upon the stripping of portions of one thread of interengaging threads in order to lock a bearing in position. It is known in the art to distort, or strip, threads in order to lock one member to another; however, the prior art does not show accomplishing this by providing a discontinuity in one of the interengaging threads and causing the locking action to occur by further rotation of the bearing at the end of its rotative advancing movement.